Tag Archives: Antarctica

Sometimes, the best way to debunk a story is to read it. Case in point: The story about the discovery of ancient pyramids in Antarctica. Recently, this tale of intrepid explorers discovering a series of man-made structures on a continent that has been too harsh to support sustainable human life for millions of years went viral over the Internet.

The story was picked up by many news outlets and blogs throughout the world, and has made its way as a meme on Facebook and other social media sites. By all accounts, this story would sound like the greatest archeological discovery of a lifetime.

However, nearly everything about this article, including the pictures and descriptions of the “explorers” hint that this was merely a hoax. Even the news outlets that ran with the story are suspect. Whatever the case may be, the story is its own undoing.

CORRECTION: At 5:56 the slide states the equinoxes are in June and December. This should of course say March and September! D’oh!

Part three in a series taking a wry look at the idiotic belief that the Earth is flat, and how that stacks up against reality. This part continues our investigation of the Flattard Flying Spotlight, and examines the implications of the Solstices for the inhabitants of Flattardia.

YouTube videos and spiffy websites espouse the conspiracy theory – but is the movement doomed to once again fall flat over countless schisms?

YouTube user TigerDan925 shocked his 26,000 followers recently by conceding a shocking point: Antarctica is a continent. It’s not, as he previously thought, an ice wall that encircles the flat disc of land and water we call earth.

For most of us, that’s not news. But TigerDan925’s followers, like Galileo’s 17th century critics, are outraged by his heresy. Welcome to the contentious universe of flat-Earthers – people who believe the notion of a globe-shaped world orbiting the sun is a myth.

Through popular YouTube videos and spiffy sites, they show how easy it is to get attention by questioning scientific consensus. Unfortunately, we don’t really know how many people believe in the movement because so many people in it accuse each other of being as fake as Santa Claus (or perhaps the moon landing).

That being said, TigerDan925’s admission was not a concession that the world is shaped like the globe. He merely said flat-Earthers need a new map. But for his community, he might as well have abandoned them altogether:

“Next he says the Antarctica is not governed and protected by the Illuminati, that somehow any group deciding to buy and invest in equipment is free to roam anywhere by plane or on land,” writes a user by the name Chris Madsen. “This is absolute rubbish … 2016 is the year it becomes common knowledge the earth is flat, just like 9/11 became common knowledge, no stopping the truth now. ”

Such schisms are commonplace in flat-Earthdom, where at least three websites are vying to be the official meeting ground for the movement to save us all from the delusion that our world is a globe.